Alabama trolls New Orleans with billboards: 'You are 114 miles from America's Original Mardi Gras'

Updated Mar 06, 2019; Posted Jan 31, 2018

Brittany Callahan spotted this billboard on Interstate 10 in Slidell, Louisiana, on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018, and posted it to her Twitter page. The billboard is sponsored by the Alabama Department of Tourism.

She spotted the billboard in Slidell, Louisiana, which is just northeast of the Big Easy. Callahan said she also spotted two other signs, one located near downtown New Orleans and another along eastbound I-10 in the Biloxi/Gulfport area.

"I thought it was hilarious," said Callahan. "A lot of people don't know that Mobile is the original home of Mardi Gras. For them to put something out there as you head into New Orleans, that's pretty funny."

An official with the state tourism department was not immediately available for comment Wednesday.

Lea Sinclair, spokeswoman at the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corp., acknowledged Mobile's claim as the "Birthplace of Mardi Gras." But she said the city isn't worried about who sponsored the first Carnival celebration in the early 1700s.

"Mobile, AL is indeed where the first Mardi Gras was held," Sinclair said in an email. "We don't concentrate on first. We are proud that this wonderful tradition found its way to New Orleans where it is truly one of the top events annually in the world."

Alabama politicians also engaged in some friendly trolling. U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Fairhope, made the billboard known to House Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana, on Twitter.

So Mobile has taken out billboards, including one in NOLA East, declaring things along the lines of, "You are now 132 miles from America's original Mardi Gras". The ability to be so ignorant as one attempts to throw shade is astounding.

Historians link Mardi Gras in Mobile to 1703, one year after the city's founding in 1702 and 15 years before New Orleans was discovered in 1718. The first masked ball in Mobile began in 1704, and the tradition of a parade started in 1711.

But New Orleans, over time, has become synonymous in the U.S. with the pre-Lenten festival. Mobile has long been recognized as celebrating the country's second-largest Mardi Gras, drawing an estimate 1 million people each year for its various parades and balls.